Complete Indelible Love Series

by Cee, DW

  “She still giving you a hard time?”

  “No. She’s a dream as well. She’s my dream come true.”

  “Damn. I can’t believe Donovan Taylor is waxing poetic. You’re a goner. Take care of my cousin,” she warned, “and thank you for our gift. Max and I will enjoy the dinner as well as the game.”

  “You’re welcome. Just remember to return the favor when Delaney and I are engaged.”

  “You anywhere near that stage?”

  “Who the hell knows? I’ve told her time and time again she’s marrying me, but her answer is always, ‘No I’m not.’ Sometimes I think I’m talking to Ellie.”

  “How about if you ask her to marry you rather than commanding and demanding it?”

  “You may have a point there, my vixen. Enjoy your day and let’s talk again soon.”

  “Bye.”

  Roland and I got ready at the firm and walked up to the rooftop where our evening function began. As soon as I walked in, I saw a sight that blinded me. Delaney was back in that infamous blue outfit—the one that got me in a shitload of trouble at Ashley’s wedding, and the one that stole my breath and heart when I first saw her in it. Her hair was up, displaying her tempting neck I so loved to suck and the camellia necklace dangling down to the small of her back was striking.

  “Hello, Sexy.” I sucked lightly at the base of her neck, and touched her low to her hips, looking scandalous at my own office party.

  “Um, excuse me Sir, but I’m meeting the love of my life here. I ask you to kindly take your hands and lips off me.” She was acting like the innocent she used to be. I loved it.

  “This love of your life is a lucky man.” Office party be damned. If any of the clients got a view of me hungrily kissing my woman, they’d understand. Who could resist such temptation?

  “He sure is.” Damn. Her innocent schoolgirl act was giving me a painful hard-on.

  “Won’t you come downstairs to my empty office and lay on my desk while I pleasure you?”

  My princess was so turned on by our act, she placed both arms around my neck and gave me the hottest kiss, yet. “Good evening, Mr. Taylor.” Her sultry voice was the exact opposite of her schoolgirl one. Tonight was going to be a hell of a night.

  “You look stunning, my love.”

  “Ahem!” Roland interrupted us. “This is a work event, Donovan.”

  Though he was kidding, it was a work event and I had a company to sell. I needed to work the room with my arm candy as my secret weapon.

  My bride-to-be went off to the ladies’ room, and I went to answer any questions with the men and women who appeared to want this law firm, badly. I schmoozed the best I could but was thrown for a loop when Delaney came back flustered and upset. Once we were in the thick of the party, there was no time to pull her aside and ask what was bothering her. For now, I had to push it aside and concentrate on the task at hand. The sooner I sold this company, the sooner we’d be married and living on the cul-de-sac.

  “You all right?” I couldn’t believe I was only now able to ask her this question, when she and Gram were about to leave.

  “Yeah.” She sounded all wrong. “I’ll see you soon?”

  “Princess.” I needed eye-to-eye contact. “I don’t know how soon you will see me, but I do know you haven’t been yourself most of the evening. I don’t know what could have gone wrong in the bathroom, or what I could’ve done to piss you off, but you’re brooding with a smile.”

  “We’ll talk tonight.”

  “Are you upset with me? Did I do something wrong?”

  “I don’t think so...I don’t know. You know I’m not one to hold back my feelings. When we have some privacy, you’ll hear all about what’s bothering me.”

  Since I knew it wasn’t me, and it would be something I could easily fix, I confessed a heartfelt, “I love you,” and asked her to sleep naked tonight. By the look of surprise along with lust in her eyes, I knew she’d oblige.

  Delaney Taylor

  I came home to an obedient future wife who slept with only a thin sheet on her. She had tortured me all day with phone calls, semi-naked picture texts and sexy messages. A man could only be teased so much without looking for his woman to put out.

  “Ah,” Delaney complained, half-asleep. I couldn’t help myself. The sight of her naked, lying on her side, made me slide right behind her and start our lovemaking. “What are you doing?” She was groggy and yet alert enough to complain.

  “Making love to the woman who’s teased me all day and night with this sexy body.” I brought my finger around and began playing with her.

  “But, I’m not ready.” She was breathy again. The moans would be next.

  “You will be soon, and you need to keep your voice down. I know this is a big house, but at four in the morning, everyone can hear you.”

  I gave her some time to adjust to me and once again, my woman liked every new position even better than the last new position. She was definitely going to be my adventuress in bed—a loud adventuress! To keep her from waking up the entire house, I placed my hand over her mouth and something about that forbidden factor pushed us over the edge even quicker than our usual frenzied pace.

  “I’m thinking we should move into the apartment.” There was no way we could keep this up with so many people in the same house.

  “I hate the thought of leaving my family, but I think you’re right. Maybe we’ll go back and forth, and only have sex when we’re at the apartment.”

  “I plan on fucking you every night so that’s not going to work. We’ll figure something out.”

  “Just don’t attack me in the middle of the night when the house is dead silent.” She tried to sound annoyed. I tickled that annoyance out of her. “You got home late. You must be exhausted.”

  “I am, but I’m willing to listen to what you have to say before I crash for a couple of hours. I have an 8:00am meeting.”

  “Go to sleep, Donovan. I know you’re tired.”

  “Speak, Princess, or I’ll attack you one more time.” Loving this feeling of still being connected to her, I placed light kisses everywhere I could to get her to open up. “What was wrong, tonight?”

  “When I went to the restroom, I heard, I mean I...” She stopped to collect her thoughts. “All right. How about if I ask you this. What do you get if you marry me?”

  Was this a trick question? “Um...I get a beautiful, sexy, passionate, and caring woman when we get married.”

  I guess my answer wasn’t correct. She asked another random one. “What do you get financially if we get married?”

  I didn’t know if it was the lack of sleep but I had no freakin’ clue what the hell she was getting at. The only plan of attack was to give her the straightest non-confrontational answer. “I get a quarter of a million dollars in medical school bills, plus whatever credit card bills you may carry?”

  “No.” Damn—still wrong! “That’s not what I meant. And plus, I don’t have any credit card bills; I don’t spend money I don’t have.”

  “Hallelujah!” I always knew this woman was a smart one.

  “And Daddy is looking into getting me into med school this year, so you won’t have to pay for it because I’m still a Reid.”

  What the hell? “Wait, what? When did this happen? Why didn’t you tell me you were headed back to school?”

  She flat out ignored my questions and started in on what bothered her. “I heard Kate and some woman talking in the restroom earlier tonight, and they were saying that you were only dating me because you’ll inherit a part of the law firm if you marry me. While I don’t believe everything these bitches said, I am disgruntled that no one told me about this million dollar dowry of mine. Why haven’t you mentioned any of this?”

  “Because I was just told this information the day before I landed in London. Supposedly, Roland set up his will to divide the company amongst your uncles, Jake, Jane, and me, by marriage through you. And if by some
hell-freezes-over chance we don’t get married, I can buy into this stake.”

  “And...?”

  “And that’s it. Jane and I will get bigger shares because we are the working partners, and your uncles and Jake are technically silent partners.”

  “There’s nothing more to this?”

  “Babe. What I told you is all I know. I’ve no idea how much of the company we will receive. Roland never offered that information, and I’m not about to wonder. You and I will be fine with my income alone, even if you chose not to work. I don’t care to work to death so I can have more money than I can spend. I’ve told you before, I want to raise a family with you. I want to travel with you. We don’t need hoards of money to do this especially since your grandparents have laid the groundwork for us to live in their homes.”

  “So with my new-found wealth, perhaps I’ll go to law school instead and put myself in the will instead of you.”

  She was a spitfire even at four in the morning. “Babe. I believe it’s you who’s in the will. I’m just your worker bee. But if you want to work and support me, I’m all for that. So is this explanation to your satisfaction?”

  “I guess so. It wasn’t that I was mad at you. It was just weird hearing private family matters from two strangers. I swear, if we weren’t at yours and Grandfather’s company function, I would have dropkicked both bitches. Do you know what that middle-aged ex of yours said?”

  “What?” My God, I would’ve given away my share of the firm to have seen my woman wrestling those two in the bathroom. I might have even thrown water at them to get the wet t-shirt look. I started laughing so hard Delaney pinched my arm to get my attention.

  As soon as I stopped howling, Delaney explained, “She said you’d come back to her after we broke up because you always came back to her. Bitch!”

  “Remind me never to cross you.” Behind the beautiful blonde mane lived a scary lioness!

  “It doesn’t piss you off that Kate’s going around saying those things about you and me?”

  “Not really. What’s there to be mad about? I love you. We’re getting married, and that’s that. Now you tell me what’s going on with med school. What’s this talk about your dad getting you into school this year?”

  “I was thinking that maybe wasting a year isn’t a good idea now with you in the picture. When I contemplate going to school for four years, then doing my residency for another four years, I wondered when I would have kids and how this was all going to work out.”

  “Explain.”

  “If we were to get married, you’re at a stage in your life where you want kids, a family, the Jake and Emily life. I am only starting my life now, a year late at that, so I won’t be able to give you any of that for eight years at the earliest. If that is the case, then it seems not very prudent to push off the inevitable by messing around in Europe. So I asked Daddy to see if I could possibly enroll in med school in a couple of weeks. I was going to tell you, but we just never had the time to sit and talk about this.”

  Yeah, I wanted the married life, the kids, the house on the cul-de-sac, but I wanted to give my future bride a more exciting life than she could’ve ever dreamed. “Delaney, I appreciate what you are trying to do, but I don’t want you to do this for me. In fact, I want you to keep this year open so we can travel while I’m based here in Europe. Once you start school, once we create a family, we will never be able to do this as freely, again. This year is a gift most people don’t ever receive. Let’s make the most of our situation and enjoy life.”

  “Are you sure? You’re going to be kind of old when you have your first child.”

  “Is this an admission that we are getting married?”

  “Donovan, I’d marry you today if only you understood…” she sighed.

  “What am I doing wrong? Is it the lack of a ring? I know I haven’t picked out your ring yet. I thought you might want to do it together.”

  “It’s not a ring. I don’t need one.”

  “Have you changed your mind? You don’t want to marry me anymore?” Though I said this out of frustration, I was more hoping to guilt her into accepting the position of being my wife.

  “I’ve wanted this since I was ten. My heart’s the same. Nothing’s changed. Never mind. I don’t need you to do anything.” There was a sad resignation to her words. I hated that I was missing out on something so important to her that she would hold back from accepting my proposal. “You’re all that I need. I’ll tell Mom later today to start the prepar...”

  “Wait. Don’t say anymore.” She halted and stared. Proposal...proposal...what was it that Jane said to me earlier today? ‘How about if you ask her to marry you rather than commanding and demanding it?’ A Proposal! Dammit. That’s what she wanted. The fairy tale girl that she was, she wanted me down on one knee professing my love to her. I did it!!! I figured it out. This was better than solving the US debt-ceiling crisis. Hallelujah! We were getting married.

  “Donovan?” Delaney probably thought I had gone coo coo for cocoa puffs, as she liked to put it.

  “I was talking to Jane today...” Shit. I shouldn’t have told her that. How was I to get out of this one?

  “And...? What did Jane say?”

  “Um, she and I talked about...” I was such a moron. Why had I brought up Jane? Now I needed to make something up. “We talked about the firm and how originally I was to stay out here for a year, try and win you over, then she would work here while Max did his residency in London.”

  “Is there a but to that?”

  “With Roland deciding to sell the European side of the firm, neither of us will ever have to live away from our families. As principle owners, we wouldn’t have a choice in the matter. Now, the furthest we have to travel to is New York. We could both be based in LA.”

  “That’s fantastic.”

  And fantastic it was. I gave her Roland and AAP’s long history, and Delaney was engrossed enough to forget about Jane. I knew I could be brilliant at times.

  With the attention we were getting from and giving to our potential buyers, there wasn’t much time for anything but sex in the wee hours of the morning and work starting at the crack of dawn. Roland and I finished in time to make it to our family get-away in the lush resort of St. Andrews up in Scotland.

  My very soon-to-be wife was loving the serene surroundings and itching to golf. This was my time to show her how good I really was on the golf course.

  “How about loser is the winner’s sex slave for the weekend?” I needed to up the ante of our golf game.

  She was game and we left our room before our petting got too hot and heavy for us to want to leave.

  I didn’t give a damn we were the last ones to show for our tee times. We took a leisurely walk to the pro shop, and I thought I saw someone who looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him. It was one of those instances where I wondered if he was someone from the office, or possibly a part of the Eggleston group...who was he? It bugged me I couldn’t remember.

  “Duchess,” he called and suddenly I remembered who this asshole was. What the fuck was he doing here? Was he following my girlfriend? This was not going to be a fun day if he kept calling Delaney by a moniker that did not belong to her.

  “Laney Reid. You owe me a game of golf,” some old man yelled. Now who the hell was he?

  “Hi Michael.” Delaney let go of my hand and went to greet the three men standing near our families.

  That dickhead took advantage of Delaney’s kindness, and turned a platonic greeting into a hug and a kiss. My head exploded when I saw another man touching Delaney. “Keep your fucking hands and lips off my girlfriend.”

  Immediately, Jake held me back, and Delaney attempted to coax me out of my belligerence. “Don’t, Donovan. It was just a greeting, and he didn’t mean to do that.” She was anxious, borderline frantic. “I’ll be more careful next time I see him. Please don’t be angry. We have our families here, and your ire will only make thi
s situation more awkward. I love you.” Seeing her unsettled forced me to tamp down my anger and do what we came to do—play golf.

  As luck would have it, we joined forces with the Benningtons, and Delaney looked as unhappy as I was. Jake and I paired up with the asshole and his cousin, while my girlfriend and her grandfather paired up with Harry and the chief.

  “Keep it cool,” Jake warned. “Delaney is yours now. You took her away from Michael. If anyone should be pissed, it’s him, not you.”

  “I’m going to kick his ass if he tries to touch her again.”

  “I know how you feel but we are out here with our families and his, don’t act like a moron. Your nervous girlfriend won’t appreciate it.”

  Looking over to Delaney, I knew Jake was right. There was no need to upset her any more than she already was.

  “Shall we play?” The cousin spoke. “Hello. I’m Niles Bennington, cousins with Michael, youngest grandson of Harry’s, fourth in line to the dukedom.” This Niles had a good sense of humor. I’d stick with him this morning.

  “I’m Jake Reid, this is Donovan Taylor, and that’s my grandfather, Roland and cousin Laney, up ahead.”

  “I’ve heard of your family. In fact, the names Laney and Reid are all I’ve heard since Michael returned from America.”

  “Shall we play?” I pushed this friendly meet-and-greet along. The sooner this game was done, the sooner I could be with my woman.

  The first couple of holes went without a hitch. Jake and I shot well and we helped each other where necessary. It was at the third hole I wanted to punch the lights out of this English asshole.

  “I took Laney to Grandfather’s home when we came home after seeing JR in the hospital and she couldn’t believe he had a 9-hole golf course in his backyard.” Knowing he was trying to goad me, I let the statement go. I tried to reason that I’d be pissed too if my girlfriend left me for another man. “Grandfather couldn’t believe he’d lost to a woman the first time they’d played. Duchess beat him by...”

  “I fucking told you not to call Delaney, Duchess! She will never, ever be your duchess because she is marrying me.” I couldn’t help myself. After seeing our interactions, how the hell could he think he and Delaney were ever getting back together?